The program began, appropriately enough, with Invocation by Charles Fussell (b. 1938), a choral setting of a compelling poem by May Sarton. Its first three stanzas address an unknown entity, summoning it “out of the dark earth … under the strong wave … into the pure air.” The final stanza reveals that the addressee is love, perhaps implying that love is the fourth element, fire. Originally written for chorus and one pianist, Fussell’s work was here performed in David Hoose’s arrangement for two pianos, featuring the excellent playing of Kopp and Lister. The attractive piece, with its arresting fanfare opening and tranquil, atmospheric conclusion, received a well-modulated, textually sensitive performance from Hoose and the chorus.

One of the bases for the program’s title was Some Thoughts on Keats and Coleridge by Earl Kim (1920-1998) which sets, mosaic-like, fragments of five poems by the two poets. This unorthodox procedure seems justified by the way these fragments all examine nature and the transience of life as well as their easy, natural progression from one to the next. Instead of specific word illustration, Kim lets the text selections inspire a mood, and again Hoose and the chorus were expert guides. The first poem, Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight, was given an exquisite, lush setting with echoes of Elgar’s and Holst’s partsongs. The second, Keats’s Ode to Psyche, felt like a continuation of Coleridge’s idea, and the music reflected this. If I once or twice wished for a bit more contrast of mood and texture during this work, I had to concede that the composer and performers were faithful to the imagery and tenor of the text selections, and given such deathless poetry (excerpts from Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, Shed No Tear — O Shed No Tear, and To Autumn made up the remainder), who could cavil? My one quibble was that the understated enunciation of the chorus necessitated frequent glances at the printed texts which, over time, becomes irksome when these are in one’s mother tongue and set in Kim’s natural, straightforward manner.

Harold Shapero (b. 1920) was a senior at Harvard when he composed his Four-Hand Sonata for Piano in 1941 to play with his friend and classmate Leonard Bernstein. Shapero’s appealing, contemporary idiom with clustered sonorities and whiffs of jazz seems to have influenced the musical direction taken by his friend later on. The first movement was heard alone here and the remaining two after intermission. The polished teamwork of Kopp and Lister and the astonishing assurance of the 20-year-old composer combined for a stimulating musical experience, fully exploiting the piano’s sustaining and percussive qualities.

Scenes from a Movie: The 26th Dream is the final segment of a trilogy by Earl Kim, setting texts from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Aus dem Traumbuch (From the Dreambook) in English translation. Unlike the two previous, more intimate scorings in the trilogy (the seventh and 11^th dreams), The 26^th Dream uses something more expansive: baritone, chorus, and two pianos. A member of the Cantata Singers’ bass section, Mark-Andrew Cleveland, was an excellent musician and actor, both as narrator and character. At the two pianos Lister and Kopp provided harmonic support and mood reinforcement for what was essentially dramatic recitation with music added. In a scena with great amounts of text, Kim’s syllabic, simple word-setting was a blessing, though even here the sometimes laissez-faire approach to diction had me referring to the printed text more than I wished. As with a scene performed out of context, the specific references to many events and people required the imagination of audience members to fill in the gaps. The prevailing atmosphere of muted angst was well conveyed especially by the chorus, though there were times when I wished their elegantly blended tone might yield momentarily, for the sake of the drama, to something with a bit more bite.

Following intermission we first heard The Annunciation, by one of the concert’s pianists, Rodney Lister (b. 1951). A typical approach to this event — the Angel Gabriel arriving to inform the Virgin Mary that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God — is to illustrate first Mary’s astonishment and then her joy. However, Lister chose the path less taken, a largely quiet response as though Mary has been stunned into silence. The composer set a passage from W. H. Auden’s For the Time Bein” to gently astringent harmonies frequently based on 7^th chords. The garden is the central motif, both the literal place where Mary encounters Gabriel and a symbol of her virginal body and mind. The passage ends: “The garden unchanged, the silence unbroken: None may wake there but One who shall be woken. Wake.” The triple repetition, pianissimo, of the last word — as if coaxing a loved one out of slumber with supreme gentleness — was quite moving.

We next heard the remaining two movements of Harold Shapero’s Four-Hand Sonata for Piano. (I should mention here that an earlier rendition of this piece by Kopp and Lister is accessible on youtube.) The second movement was an effective mélange of fanfare flourishes, a calm world-weary theme, and some quasi-flippant figures. In the final movement, even among the shifting meters, one could pick out snatches of rhumba rhythm (3+3+2). This section was somewhat less serious-minded than the preceding ones, and like the “Brasileira” finale of Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche, its mounting brilliance and excitement swept the listener along. It was heartwarming at the end to see the nonagenarian composer rise to receive the audience’s rapturous applause.

The program concluded with its best-known work, Aaron Copland’s most significant choral piece, In the Beginning, for mezzo soprano and chorus a cappella. Janna Baty was superb, both leading and collaborating with the chorus in telling the creation story from Genesis. In a work with rather numerous moments of bitonality and complex chords, Baty’s pitch — and that of her fellow singers — was as unshakable as God’s purpose. Though much of the early part of the piece is moderate of tempo and dynamic, the performers’ inner intensity never flagged, and there was an impressive climax at the point when mankind is created, highlighted by bare octaves and jagged skips. At “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven … and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years …” the syncopations danced vigorously and merrily with exemplary ensemble. The concluding climax — “and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” — was at once ecstatic and triumphant.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church.

The characters are named by type: Vixen (in the sense of a woman fully aware of, and prepared to use, her sexual power), Roma (the collective name applied to gypsies concentrated in Eastern Europe and the Balkans), Youth (a callow male), Guslar (one who plays the gusle, an instrument similar to the cello), and Hajduk (a Balkan word, ironically pronounced “high duke” but meaning “outlaw”). The work’s seven scenes ostensibly represent a week, though a literal perspective on the plot would seem to require the passage of years. For instance, we have the dramatic character changes of Vixen who morphs, seemingly overnight, from a little girl playing pattycake into a femme fatale, albeit an initially self-conscious and insecure one. Hajduk as well transforms from a mere outlaw into the Devil and back again in the space of seven “days”; this may be simply the intersection of two different folktales, but if so, they both involve his mutual attraction to Vixen. It is not clear.

Inspired by Béla Bartók’s pioneering ethnomusicological research, Nez used only “folk material” in the vocal parts, which encompassed “normal” singing, Sprechstimme, spoken text, and siren-like cries whose emotional provenance was ambiguous to my western ears. The singers all had attractive, resonant voices: soprano Anna Ward as Vixen, mezzo-soprano Hilary Anne Walker as Roma; tenor Leslie Tay as Youth, Guslar, and Man; and baritone Kevin Kees as Hajduk and the Devil. Their enunciation, while not stellar, was generally acceptable; however, the musical setting of the text was fairly frequently not conducive to understanding. To cite one example, the several instances of quasi-canonic imitative writing had the admirable dramatic purpose of evoking two people drawing close together (in every sense) — but usually at the cost of the text’s comprehensibility. The projected surtitles (which I only noticed after four scenes) were far to the left of the stage, rather dim, and supported the most common argument against surtitles: they took the viewers’ eyes off the characters’ faces and actions. Whether it was owing to this, or to the opera being a “hard sell,” or to something else again, the acting of the cast was often not subtle, as though they were mightily determined to hold the audience’s attention.

Much of the time, Nez gave the singers fairly conventional melodic material, presumably folktunes though their harmonic context was most often unconventional at the very least. It was an interesting juxtaposition of the traditional and the modernist, with mixed results. And to avoid getting overly avant garde, we had comic relief in the “non-verbal” character, a bear, well growled by Kate Paulsen, which initially chases the Youth off the stage (one can’t help but recall Shakespeare’s immortal stage direction in The Winter’s Tale: “exit pursued by a bear”). Ultimately, the bear is chased in turn by the Youth, dances with him and the rest of the cast, and literally as well as symbolically picks up their messes — to the accompaniment of an ascending slide whistle. In fact, for me the non-sung dancing sequences were frequently more memorable, both for their narrative choreography and their music with the common touch. If there is a plot thread uniting the seven scenes, it would have to be the volatility and impermanence of human relationships as well as the ultimate failure of the sexes fully to understand each other.

As a reviewer, I personally want to help new works of merit find future audiences, but in my own mixture of responses to The Fiddler and the Old Woman of Rumelia, frustration finally won out. My lasting impression is of a montage including a cross-section of Balkan folk music and dance, a bit of morality tale, traditional mythic storytelling, and a generous dollop of theater of the absurd. While there is undoubtedly some fresh, imaginative music and choreography as well as some effective humor, I came away feeling it tries to do too many things at once and inevitably muddies the water. Nonetheless, it is clear that Ketty Nez and Juventas are gifted artists with something to say, and it is well worth keeping track of their future endeavors. And I must include a special word of commendation to the Free for All Concert Fund, Inc., whose generous support allowed free admission to these premiere performances. May their work continue.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church.

Perhaps the only aspect over which more pains should have been taken was the program booklet, which had a number of errors, the most egregious being: the surname of the original historical short story’s author was listed three different ways (Gertrude von le Fort is correct); the projected English translation is by Joseph, not John, Machlis; and the nuns were certainly not arrested on June 22, 1974 but rather June 22, 1794. A reliable, independent proofreader might give all concerned more peace of mind in future.

The production conformed to the composer’s wish that his opera be performed in the language of the singers and audience, and the Machlis translation, slightly adapted from the Ricordi score, worked well. The cast’s enunciation ranged from good to excellent. A curiously unexplained credit: “Reorchestration by Tiffany Chang.” Poulenc’s special emphasis on wind instruments and his trademark sensual colors didn’t seem perceptibly altered; one wonders why the need to “reorchestrate” was felt.

On the cusp of the Revolution (1789), the opening scene contrasts with the rest of the opera, being set in the elegantly appointed library of the Marquis de la Force and largely a dialogue between the Marquis and his son, the Chevalier de la Force. The rest of the piece transpires in considerably less opulent locales (the convent, prison, etc.), and the leading characters are largely female. Bass-baritone Adrian Smith, as the calm paterfamilias, and tenor John Irvin as the son worrying about his sister, displayed attractive voices. The characters’ age difference was skillfully suggested by carriage and gestures. When the Marquis’s daughter, Blanche de la Force, appears later, she seems to justify her older brother’s concern that her lifelong condition of morbid fear and hypersensitivity is worsening. Soprano Celeste Fraser portrays this well, and her naturally rapid vibrato subtly reinforces the characterization. Her subsequent declaration to her father that she intends to enter the convent marks her first assertion of independence, yet she doesn’t seem absolutely certain of her reasons.

Some of the text here, both father’s and daughter’s, got covered by the orchestra. This recurred later a few times. Usually, the surtitles would be there to fill in any gaps, though they were somewhat erratic.

At the convent Blanche is then interviewed for admission to the Carmelite order. As the old, ailing Prioress, Madame de Croissy, mezzo soprano Amanda Tarver, though not the contralto Poulenc specifies, has sufficient gravity of character and low notes to be convincing. Her manner while questioning Blanche alternated between gently welcoming and brusque. The mood is lightened later when now-Sister Blanche and her fellow novice Sister Constance do chores together. Constance is a flighty type, and soprano Sonja Krenek gave her an amusing chatterbox persona. Speaking irreverently of the Reverend Mother, she feels, “… if I could save the life of our dear Mother, I would gladly surrender my poor little life … But really, at 59 years, is it not high time to die?” This elicited some uneasy titters! Though friends, the two novices have very different outlooks and at this point fail to have a meeting of the minds.

Act I ends with Madame de Croissy’s extended death scene, beginning with the touching devotions of Mother Marie, soprano Lauren Ashleigh Lyles, to the Prioress who entrusts Blanche to her care. Here too, unfortunately, there were a few text audibility problems. The Prioress summons Blanche for a personal farewell since, as the most recent novice, Blanche is closest to her heart. A string of high pppp orchestra chords announcing the novice’s arrival might have been a ravishing moment but for the painful intonation. Nonetheless, the final conference of “mother and daughter” was a very moving, powerful blend of expressive singing from Tarver and Fraser, containing acting that rang true and the beautiful colors of Poulenc’s accompaniment. However, Act I ends with the Prioress passing into delirium — something not far from a mad scene — and expiring in harrowing fashion.

Early in Act II, Mother Marie is essentially acting Prioress; she follows the example of the late Prioress, treating Blanche with alternating asperity and tenderness. Marie is quick to realize that the community is looking to her for authority, and Lyles’s firmness of voice and gesture is telling as she interacts with Blanche. A new Prioress, Madame Lidoine, arrives to make her long inaugural speech to the sisters. Meredeth Kelly’s large, handsome soprano voice is certainly integral to her characterization of the new leader taking charge. She leads the Carmelites in a setting of Ave Maria, sung exquisitely by Kelly and the nuns’ choir.

Later the Chevalier comes to the convent in an attempt to persuade Sister Blanche to come home with him, feeling she would be safer there during these troubled times. There is a painful debate, and Irvin and Fraser make clear that while her brother understands her better than their father does, he still thinks of his younger sister as a little girl depending on her family for protection. For the first time, Blanche asserts her adulthood and independence, but her brother almost short-circuits it by using her early pet name, “little rabbit.” Fraser endows her with new strength, but plainly her vulnerability hasn’t altogether disappeared. Irvin also seizes his opportunity to show new layers of the Chevalier’s personality. For the first time he is made to see his and the Marquis’s over-protectiveness of Blanche, and though he may be open-minded enough to perceive his mistake, he is unable to do an immediate emotional about-face and admit it openly. His exit is emotionally ambiguous–not something one is likely to see in conventional operas. The singing and acting were equally impressive here.

As Act III opens, in 1794, the Carmelites, long since expelled from their convent, clandestinely reunite there in secular garb. Blanche has been forced into servitude in her family’s house and has had to watch her father’s execution, but her instinct for self-preservation has strengthened. When Mother Marie arrives to bring her back to the convent, she is reluctant, feeling better hidden as a menial at her childhood home. Fraser delicately walks the line between reluctance and outright disobedience; Lyles supplies an electrifying moment when she suddenly, dramatically addresses Blanche using her chosen Carmelite name, Sister Blanche of the Agony of the Christ.

Naturally, the nuns are discovered in their convent and arrested. Having no illusions, the new Prioress joins them in their pledge of martyrdom. Kelly floated some beautiful pianissimo high notes, telling her daughters that even Christ had a moment of fearing death. Sister Constance offers her opinion that Sister Blanche will return, and when asked how she knows, hesitantly explains that she had a dream. In the score the sisters burst out laughing, the last moment of comic relief, but here all remained grim. Perhaps this was to intensify the foreboding just before the jailer arrives to confirm that they are all indeed condemned to die. If so, such was achieved.

The final, very famous scene depicts the sisters mounting the scaffold one by one while they all sing the Salve Regina. The guillotine sound effect began almost subtly but became increasingly powerful as the scene progressed and the nuns’ choir shrank one voice at a time. The gathered crowd, initially a rowdy rabble, becomes strangely quiet, impressed by the serene fortitude of the Carmelites. The wordless mixed chorus evocatively filled out the harmonies of the nuns’ hymn. Sister Constance appears to be the last to die, but as she starts toward the scaffold, Sister Blanche emerges from the crowd; there was a profoundly moving moment as the sisters smiled at each other, each reinforcing the other’s resolve in a silent pledge of eternal friendship. After Constance’s singing is cut short, the crowd starts to go home. Blanche, in secular clothes, could do the same but chooses to reveal herself by singing the Veni Creator and walking to the scaffold. The silence when her song ended was haunting. There is a very brief and quiet orchestral coda. The audience sat in stricken silence as the curtain slowly descended, but then burst out in hearty applause. The few shortcomings, largely audibility issues, should be addressable while the singing, acting, and staging went from strength to strength. For those who love this work and those who have yet to encounter it, this is a production you shouldn’t miss.

The apéritif was a charming rarity by Ludwig van Beethoven, the Duo for Viola and Cello “with eyeglasses obbligato,” WoO 32, drawn from a collection of sketches Beethoven made between 1784 and 1800. Possibly the first movement of an unfinished sonata for this unusual combination, it is thought to have been written for the composer to play with his friend and patron, Baron Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, “a reasonably proficient cellist.” (The crucial clue: a letter addressed to “My dearest Baron Muckcart Driver” in which Beethoven refers to his friend’s weak eyesight.) The cellist, in particular, has his work cut out for him — one wonders how proficient the baron was — especially in an energetic passage that extends well into violin range; but both instruments have their share of showy music. The highly exposed texture did betray a couple fleeting moments of imperfect tuning, but Gazouleas’s and Miller’s performances had a winning combination of ebullience, understated wit, and exemplary ensemble.

Dimitriades joined Gazouleas and Miller for the Serenade in C, Opus 10, by Ernö (aka Ernst) Dohnányi (1877-1960), the great Hungarian composer, pianist, and conductor as well as grandfather of the estimable music director emeritus of the Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi. The opening Marcia was vigorous; its Trio had a strong folk music element in an extended perfect-fifth drone. The Romanza delighted, as Gazouleas supplied a beguiling theme in the viola to pizzicato accompaniment by violin and cello; one could envision a serenade with mandolin, moonlight, and balcony. The Scherzo ingeniously combined the old-fashioned — fugal form — with the modern — an angular, tensely chromatic fugue subject, as well as the romantic — the lyrical and passionate second theme. It was a neat trick to combine two utterly contrasted themes so convincingly; virtuosity of composer and performers was on display here. The Tema con variazioni got considerable mileage from its doleful theme. For me, the highlights were the first variation, like a bel canto aria expressively sung by Dimitriades, and the final variation in which the trio gave us a seductively beautiful love song, briefly interrupted by an ominous moment before concluding blissfully. In the brilliant display of the final Rondo the players engaged in some friendly competition that featured plenty of joie de vivre — and joie de jouer.

In the second half Keyes joined the above trio for Franz Schubert‘s String Quartet in D minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden.” However, we were a long time getting started due to extensive furniture-moving by the musicians — and consequent retuning. Surely in the future someone could be appointed to do the legwork during intermission? The experience was also not enhanced for me by my neighbor’s atonal groaning along with the music through most of the piece. Perhaps an excellent performance of a beloved piece does sometimes tempt one to participate, but I’m quite sure Miss Manners would disapprove, along with fellow audience members. Venting concluded.

The quartet members generated full-blooded drama from the great contrasts of Schubert’s first movement, now fortissimo thundering, now piano wheedling. It is the second movement, a set of variations on the composer’s song, Der Tod und das Mädchen, that lends its name to his penultimate quartet. In the original song the piano sets the scene with a very somber introduction; we progress to the maiden’s fearful pleading for Death to pass her by; and conclude with Death’s soothing invitation for her to sleep peacefully in his arms. Although Schubert here omits the actual music of the maiden, in the first variation Keyes made her pleading quite perceptible in the first violin part, sometimes sweet-talking, sometimes agitated. The second variation gives the limelight to the cello, and Miller’s soulful song was set off beautifully by the upper strings’ accompaniment, delicate as lacework. Variation no. 3’s agitated anapestic rhythms were possibly a representation of the maiden’s last resistance, while the major-mode serenity of the last variation in the instruments’ celestial upper registers suggested she had crossed over to a better place. The quartet made this a sublime oasis in a largely turbulent, feverish work. The scherzo plunged us back into the tempest though not without the respite of the elegant, anodyne Trio, calm at the center of the storm. The famous tarantella of the finale crackled with electricity, the ensemble wonderfully tight at a genuine Presto. Even at this breathless pace, the players gave us a considerable variety of textures and colors: agitated whisperings, wildly whirling dervishes, the Olympian pronouncements of the second chorale-like theme. And I should think the Prestissimo coda left performers and audience alike gasping for breath. Congratulations to the Boston Artists Ensemble on the superb conclusion of its 30^th season, and may it have a great many more.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church.

The program was bookended by performances of Odeà la Musique by Swiss composer Frank Martin. This pæan to music sets a wonderful poem by 14^th-century bard Guillaume de Machaut. It speaks of the many charms of music and features multiple styles of writing, including pungent harmonies (though conservative by 1961 standards) as well as an evocation of medieval organum when the text refers to “caroles.” The accompaniment is assigned to an idiosyncratic band — six brass players, a string bass, and piano — and there is an extended baritone solo in the middle, sensitively sung here by Donald Wilkinson. Martin’s consistent sensitivity to his text demands the same from performers. Chorus, soloist, and instrumentalists earned high marks here, by turns vigorous, introspective, ethereal, and triumphant. The second performance had perhaps an extra degree of relaxed confidence, but both were enthralling.

Proceeding into the a cappella realm, Olivier Messiaen’s evergreen O sacrum convivium, despite occasionally uncertain pitch, had a hushed intensity not often heard. Highlights of Claude Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans included the vocal imitation of percussion in Quant j’ai ouy le tabourin (When I hear the little drum) and the enjoyably exaggerated drama of Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain (Winter, you’re nothing but a scoundrel). Forgotten treasures, possibly receiving their North American premiere, formed the next set, Trois Chansons, written in 1938 by well-known conductor Jean Martinon (1910-1976) to sweetly surreal texts by Fernand Marc. The second (“The princes who protect weighty secrets”) was especially enchanting, full of sensuous beauty and finely graded crescendi/diminuendi, ending on an unresolved chord. Spectrum soprano Maki Koto Carman gave winsome voice to a “young rose.”

After the Francophone portion of the program, Samuel Barber’s 1942 Reincarnations led off the American remainder. Appropriately for a St. Patrick’s Day concert, the composition set words of Irish poets James Stephens and Anthony Raftery. These three unaccompanied choral pieces are stern tests of any choir, and there were occasional minor imperfections of harmony and tuning, but the Spectrum Singers’ involvement in the drama, under Ehrlich’s passionate direction, was palpable. Perhaps the evening’s height of focused intensity was the second piece, Anthony O Daly. Daly, hanged in 1820 purportedly for heading an agrarian terrorist group, was widely considered a martyr. Raftery was present at the execution and wrote an ostensible lament for Daly, which is in fact more of a curse on his executioners. Barber’s musical treatment is stark and unrelieved, building to an agonized climax and further intensified by the continuous repetition of the note E above or below the melody for virtually the entire piece. At the conclusion (“There is nothing but grief!”) of Spectrum’s carefully paced, riveting account, a keening siren from across the Cambridge Common for once added a touch of serendipity instead of interfering.

The youngest piece performed was Novum Decus Oritur (A New Splendor Arises), written three years ago by Joshua Hummel (b. 1980). The composer supplied a note that spelled out in enthusiastic detail his conception of the piece’s musical-architectural representation of a cathedral and the aspect of Christian belief associated with each part. But ultimately, like a layperson who has left his Baedeker guide behind, I enjoyed the work most when I simply let it act on my own visual imagination. Ehrlich and his singers were expert guides, letting us bask in a rich pianissimo,building to a resplendent climax, and dying away gradually. Spectrum soprano Carol McKeen gave us many an elegant arched phrase over the choral texture, and these did call to my mind flying buttresses. Happily, Hummel was present to receive the hearty applause of the audience.

Aaron Copland’s An Immorality (1926) was of course the starkest possible contrast to the above. Ezra Pound’s rather naughty text is encapsulated in its first couplet: “Sing we for love and idleness, Naught else is worth the having.” Scored for women’s voices with piano, most of it is virtually jazz with its deliciously syncopated accompaniment and liberal helpings of “blue notes.” One relished the single internal contrast: the third couplet becomes lyrical, even rhapsodic for the text, “And I would rather have my sweet, Though rose-leaves die of grieving …” Another versatile soloist from the soprano section, Tricia Kennedy, made a lovely effect here before taking us back to mock-heroic in the final couplet and thoroughly milking the spoof-cadenza. James R. Barkovic had a jaunty romp through the cheeky piano part.

The three Carols of Death (intriguing title!) by William Schuman are settings of some of Walt Whitman’s most beautiful and moving poems. The Last Invocation is a mostly gentle appeal for death to set the poet free. The singers built, however, to a powerful though unresolved ending, as the text notes how strong is the hold of mortal flesh and of love. The Unknown Region casts a spell of disorientation as it wanders through a completely foreign landscape with no reference points whatsoever, powerfully underscored by Schuman’s use of atonality. In Spectrum’s muted, almost vibrato-less performance, it was akin to musical sleepwalking until the end, when a sudden rise to forte seemed like a sudden awakening and panic attack — again, with resolution withheld. To All, To Each is the poet’s personal yet universal beckoning of Death. The singers’ creamy legato and smooth blend were deeply affecting, and at the dénouement — “to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death” — the tonal resolution to the whole set provided considerable comfort.

Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold) has gained some notoriety for its performance by the composer‘s “Virtual Choir” of thousands of singers worldwide via the Internet. However, I had not experienced it online and am glad to report that it can stand up quite well as a choral work independent of the World Wide Web. It is an American cousin to O sacrum convivium with its concentrated stasis — perhaps even closer to a few of Messiaen’s ultra-slow organ works where lung capacity is not an issue! Here too, the often low tessitura creates rich colors like light through a kaleidoscope. Ehrlich’s Spectrum Singers and Tricia Kennedy created a lush ambience, aided by First Church’s reverberant acoustics.

David Del Tredici’s Final Alice, a product of the composer’s obsession with Alice in Wonderland, was one of the foremost classical “success stories” of the 1970s, giving American soprano Barbara Hendricks a major career break when she premiered it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1976. We heard the excerpt Acrostic Song, arranged by the composer for soprano, chorus a cappella, and “stage whisperer.” It is so named because if one reads the first letter of each line of text vertically, they collectively spell out “Alice Pleasance Liddell,” the young English girl who inspired Lewis Carroll’s stories. The singers and still another soprano section member, Ree-Ven Wang, created a dreamy summer’s day atmosphere, though perhaps the lullaby did its work a little too well when the pitch slightly slipped southward later in the piece. James Barkovic lent some unusual atmosphere, with a little electronic assistance, by whispering each initial letter as it was reached. The performers’ affectionate rendering made a beguiling idyll whose theme was summed up in the last line — “Life, what is it but a dream?”—left unresolved on a dominant chord.

The musicians seemed re-energized for the second performance of Martin’s Ode à la Musique, and the concert concluded with a “y’all come” encore rendition of Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque with all willing audience members participating, arrayed around the perimeter of the sanctuary in perhaps a microcosmic taste of the “Virtual Choir.” Hats off to John Ehrlich and the Spectrum Singers for another fascinating mixture of the cherished familiar, the unjustly neglected, and exciting newer “up-and-comers.”

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church.

Likely the most famous piece written for choir and two organs is Louis Vierne’s Messe Solennelle, completed in 1899 when he was assistant to his teacher Charles-Marie Widor at Saint-Sulpice, but not premiered until 1901, after Vierne had gone on to become titulaire at the grand orgue of Notre Dame de Paris. The Mission Church’s acoustics closely replicate those of Saint-Sulpice or Notre Dame, and it was fascinating to hear the first Kyrie’s alternation of the thundering rear-gallery organ with the smaller choir organ plus choir in the front. Also, there was a vivid contrast between the beguiling, major-mode Christe eleison and the vehement second Kyrie, so dramatically punctuated at its climax by crashing, full-organ chords from the gallery. Some minor rhythmic disconnects (mostly the gallery organ being slightly behind the front organ and choir) occasionally pointed up the considerable challenge of maintaining cohesion between two instruments so far apart and in a highly reverberant setting. (Even in France there are probably not many organists nowadays who have grappled with this challenge. I heard a performance of the Messe in Quimper, Bretagne in which the rhythmic discrepancies were so great they very nearly derailed the performance.) At softer dynamics, however, it seemed easier to coordinate. The Benedictus cast a spell with tender, affecting singing and the mystical atmosphere Christensen and Goda created on the organs with lush string celestes and a softly rumbling 32-foot Bourdon. Vierne’s liberal use of the whole-tone scale here is wonderfully mysterious. En route to the great climax of “Hosanna”, the written organ “off-beats” unfortunately did synchronize to become “on-beats”, but both organs and choir came together for a thrilling final phrase. The quietly compelling Agnus Dei was notable for its lovely melodies caressed by the choir, unanimity of rhythm and dynamics among all the performers, and the radiant organ postlude. My only small quibble was that occasionally Vierne’s savory harmonies were less than fully transparent because of some overly generous choral vibrato.

Olivier Messiaen left us only one a cappella sacred choral work, but it is a jewel. O Sacrum Convivium (O Sacred Banquet) is indeed a feast of rich harmony and, consequently, a test of a choir’s intonation, met here fully successfully. With ascending tessitura and dynamic level, vibrato also increased and prevented some harmonies from coming across with crystal clarity, but it was a warm, full-hearted performance that let the listeners bask in the unique radiance of F-sharp major (a favorite key of the composer).

The Messe en style ancien of Jean Langlais, with optional organ accompaniment, but here sung a cappella, has a Boston connection: it is dedicated to Theodore Marier, former Music Director at St. Paul’s, Harvard Square, and Director of the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School, who recorded the piece with the St. Cecilia Society in the 1950s. As its title indicates, this mass setting emulates those of the Renaissance, utilizing quotations of plainchant, modal harmonies, and polyphony, but also giving us an occasional flash of the twentieth century through more modern harmony. The Gloria, for instance, has a passage when all four voice-parts move in parallel, quite reminiscent of the composer’s better-known Messe Solennelle which is very much a product of the twentieth century. The chorus seemed to take this piece to their hearts, maintaining excellent intonation and blend and giving it an emotional dimension not often encountered in a work written in this much older style. The Sanctus was particularly memorable for the singers’ long-breathed, legato lines and its lovely tunes. In the Agnus Dei’s tripartite structure the performers brought out the contrasts between the mystical outer sections and the more impassioned central part. I hope this sympathetic performance starts Langlais on the road to wider exposure.

The concert concluded with the Quatre Motets, Op. 9 of Marcel Dupré. Written during World War I, these works show the composer’s style in transition. O Salutaris Hostia is couched in a conservative harmonic language, beginning and ending quietly but getting more turbulent where the text mentions warfare (“bella premunt hostilia”). Lester and her singers were attuned to this word painting. Tantum Ergo, however, seemed almost by a different composer and a galaxy away from Gabriel Fauré’s sweet setting of this text. The dissonance of the organ introduction yielded to a rather more diatonic music at the entry of the choir, but the foreboding restlessness of the harmony persisted throughout. Ave Maria is a real find. Set for sopranos only with subdued organ colors, it is notable for its reverence, beauty, and femininity. Many settings of this text, of course, have all these traits as well, but Dupré’s is especially inspired. With the repetitions of “ora pro nobis” (“pray for us”), the fervor increased, taking us from the ethereal realm to the human, but the small increase in vibrato did not interfere with the exquisite harmonies. The celebratory text of Laudate Dominum (Praise the Lord, All Ye Nations) justified ratcheting up the testosterone and supplying a display piece for organists (this also utilized both organs) and choir alike. The tenor part is particularly heroic. The Seraphim tenors, though small in number, delivered the goods, as did all the musicians.

Having brought down the house, the performers offered one short encore, Pierre Villette’s Hymne à la Vierge. Taking Francis Poulenc’s choral style a step further, this a cappella work is at least half jazz, the last several tangy chords seeming lifted straight out of Manhattan Transfer. This performance, regrettably, was only partially successful. Below mezzo piano it was luscious, but its exposed texture and complex chords suffered from the increasing vibrato whenever the tessitura and dynamic level rose, and the highly reverberant room tended to complicate matters.

Thus concluded a fascinating expedition by Jennifer Lester, the Seraphim Singers, Heinrich Christensen, and Glenn Goda into undeservedly neglected choral and organ repertoire. Those who care about these genres owe it to themselves to hear this gifted ensemble whenever possible.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach, and choir member at Trinity Church, Copley Square and in the Back Bay Chorale.

After an opening monodic chant, the chorus’s very first chord established right away many of the virtues of this performance: the balance and blend were impeccable, the basses’ low C solid as granite, and there was just enough vibrato to lend warmth but not enough to obscure the transparency of the harmony. The plethora of crescendi/diminuendi (“hairpins”) were scrupulously observed by Clark and executed with rare unanimity by the chorus.

The second movement is essentially an alto solo with the chorus providing a beautiful backdrop. Mezzo Stephanie Kacoyanis gave a lovely and spiritually rich account of this movement which repeatedly blesses the Lord for the marvels of creation. The chorus provided a subtly woven, enchanting tapestry linking the terrestrial (the lower voices who accompany the soloist) and the celestial (the upper voices that alternate with her).

Another highlight —and there were many to choose from — was the fifth and possibly best-known movement, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” This particularly intimate section is characterized by a gently rocking rhythmic motif, in lullaby fashion, permeating the choral accompaniment over which tenor Stefan Reed spun golden lines of legato melody. In the middle the soloist drops out and the chant melody passes through every section of the chorus successively while the music builds inexorably to a climax. Even in the mounting power and excitement, each individual entrance came through clearly. After a final atmospheric recapitulation from Reed came the famous choral descending natural minor scale to a B flat below the staff for the second basses. The three bare-octave B flats at the end induced shivers, especially thanks to the great resonance of the low basses.

As a supplement to the Vigil (and perhaps to allow the chorus a couple of brief rests), we were also offered some Rachmaninoff from other genres: two solo songs after movement 6 and the Élégie for solo piano after movement 11. Ms. Kacoyanis and pianist Melanie Rucinski ’15 (who also sang soprano in the Vigil) performed “Yesterday We Met” and “Everything is Passing”, both from the composer’s op. 26. (Note to program compilers: as art song is intended to be an equal partnership of poetry and music, the text author should always be listed as well as the composer.) Both were fine examples of the uniquely Slavic angst of which Rachmaninoff was a past master, and Kacoyanis rendered them vividly. In the first song Rucinski began somewhat timidly but became more expansive as the song progressed, while the second song was truly an equal collaboration. Jeremy Yang ’12 (a tenor in the Vigil) played the Élégie, op. 3 No. 1, affectingly. This early piece is reminiscent of Chopin but already tinged with echt Rachmaninoff colors, which just occasionally turned quasi-Impressionist due to a bit too much pedal.

The largest of the four “epic” movements, the twelfth (“The Great Doxology”), was a sterling example of Clark’s and the Collegium’s comprehensive attention to detail, heard throughout the whole Vigil, which rendered such rich rewards. There were telling differentiations of legato, tenuto, and staccato articulations, of major and minor tonalities, and of duple against triple rhythms. As always the dynamic “hairpins”, large and small, seemed as natural as breathing, but in fact this is only accomplished with careful consideration and, in the extended ones, pacing: the art that conceals art. And as in all movements, the chant melody always emerged clearly in whichever voice-part it occurred, without seeming unduly “spotlit.”

In a concert performance (perhaps not in a liturgy), the thrilling and triumphant last movement can pose an aesthetic quandary for some who feel that, in the context of this monumental work, the finale seems over almost before it’s begun. It has the fastest tempo marking in the Vigil (Allegro con brio) and requires only a little more than a minute to sing. In his landmark recording, Robert Shaw’s solution was to repeat roughly half the movement and do a very substantial ritenuto at the (repeated) ending. Clark repeated nothing but anticipated the ritenuto by four measures which surely gave it a monumental feel, though it felt slightly odd after the surging vitality of the rest of the movement. Nonetheless, the sheer joy and excitement of the singing swept all such quibbles away.

As a choral singer who performed this wondrous work a year ago, I have a firsthand knowledge of the great demands it makes on all concerned. Outside of Russian Orthodox tradition, I doubt there is anything comparable to a fifteen-movement a cappella choral work lasting over an hour. For Western choirs, simply staying on pitch over this vast expanse is a stern test, to say nothing of pronouncing a text in Church Slavonic. The Collegium’s intonation may not have been perfect, but it came impressively close. I salute as well the professional basses, Glenn Miller, Cameron Beauchamp, Caleb Williams, and Darrick Yee, who did not have solos but certainly made a special contribution to this triumph. I hope we may look forward to further exploration of the Russian repertoire by the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum and Andrew Clark.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach, and choir member at Trinity Church, Copley Square and in the Back Bay Chorale.

BCMS violinist Harumi Rhodes and pianist Mihae Lee with cellist Michael Reynolds.

Devotés of unjustly neglected music (I count myself among them) were given a belated Christmas present by the Boston Chamber Music Society at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium. Sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Boston, BCMS and the MIT Music and Theater Arts Faculty presented Exiled to Hollywood: Outcast Artists in Southern California, with works by five such composers. The significant migration of artists and scholars who fled Fascism in Europe in the 1930s has been a hot topic of the last 20 years.

With well over 200 opus numbers, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an exceptionally prolific composer, even excluding the 200-plus movies for which he supplied music. Though his output includes many genres, he is today remembered largely as a composer for guitar and as the teacher of André Previn, Henry Mancini, and John Williams, among others. Violinist Harumi Rhodes, cellist Michael Reynolds, and pianist Mihae Lee gave us a richly colored performance of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 70. Written in the early 1930s before the composer emigrated, its style might be termed “post-Romantic,” expressively chromatic but firmly rooted in tonality. The first movement, played with a unanimous, supple rubato, had fine atmosphere, though Lee was perhaps a tad deferential to the strings: the trio didn’t always seem like three equal partners. The second movement, Romanza con variazioni, displayed the composer’s ingenuity of variation technique, sensitively realized here. The final Rondo began with an agitated tarantella character, relaxed in the middle, then built up to an exciting conclusion. The BCMS players made a strong case for a reassessment of the full scope of this composer’s oeuvre.

The next group made for a very stark contrast. The talented composer Hanns Eisler was a disciple of Arnold Schoenberg but is not a household name today, possibly owing to his Marxist affiliation and his belief that “music should not stir the emotions but rather be functional, applicable, ‘used for the theatre, cinema, cabaret, television, public events, etc.’” (Program notes by Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot.) Alone among these five composers in the concert, Eisler fled the Nazis because he was a Communist, and some years later, after being blacklisted by Hollywood, was deported from the U.S. for the very same reason. His most important collaborator was the writer Bertolt Brecht, who shared his political philosophies. Baritone Chris Pedro Trakas and pianist Randall Hodgkinson gave dramatic accounts of 16 selections from the Hollywood Songbook, whose texts largely concern the plight of political dissidents and refugees. These terse settings rather undermine Eisler’s ideal of functional, non-emotional music. Between the pain and anger permeating nearly all these texts and the intense delivery of Trakas and Hodgkinson, whether vehement or understated, the songs’ power to disturb was indisputable. To cite several highlights: Über den Selbstmord (“About suicide”), discussing times when miserable people are most tempted to end their lives, was mostly pianissimo and eerily seductive, with a jolting subito fortissimo on the final word (“throw their unendurable life away”). In Jeden Morgen . . . the artists fully conveyed Brecht’s mordant humor when describing the life of a screenwriter (or film composer): “Every morning to earn my bread, I go to the market where lies are peddled. Filled with hope, I line up with the other peddlers.” And we were made to feel the anguished irony of Die Heimkehr (The homecoming), a title used often enough in celebratory fashion by various 19th-century lieder composers, but here describing a return to a barely identifiable native city, enveloped in smoke and flame, just after the departure of “swarms of bombers.” One would expect mostly atonal settings of angry or morose texts to be a trial for the listener, but Trakas and Hodgkinson made a riveting theatrical experience of them.

As with Maurice Ravel and his Bolero, Ernst Toch found himself best known for a piece he considered an “unimportant diversion,” his Geographical Fugue for spoken chorus. However, he was another highly productive composer in nearly all genres who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Though he was a veteran of World War I, as a Jew he was compelled to leave Germany by Hitler’s rise to power. Rhodes and Hodgkinson played Toch’s atonal Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 44, from 1928, when he was still enjoying considerable success in the German musical avant garde. The first movement opened savagely — the tempo marking is Trotzig, anstürmend (“Defiant, charging”) — but progressed to imitative writing. Much of the musical interest is derived from the way the two instruments collaborate, sometimes independently, even at cross-purposes, other times in close concert. The sonata is seasoned throughout by flirtations with tonality and, particularly in the latter two movements, the composer’s permutations of rhythm. Rhodes’s and Hodgkinson’s playing was assured and polished, particularly the thrilling fiery conclusion which harkens back to the sonata’s beginning.

Louis Gruenberg was the one composer on this program who was not properly an “exile”; he was born in 1884 in Brest-Litovsk (now in Belarus, but then in Russia), but his family emigrated to New York when he was a few months old. He nonetheless crossed the Atlantic repeatedly to study and perform (he was a gifted pianist) in Vienna and Berlin until the arrival of World War I. Gruenberg’s charmingly titled Four Indiscretions, Op. 20, for string quartet, supplied a refreshing touch of levity in the program, as superbly played by violinists Ida Levin and Rhodes, violist Roger Tapping, and cellist Michael Reynolds. Though always interested in the latest compositional techniquest — the composer was a longtime close friend of Schoenberg’s — Gruenberg concentrated mostly on cultivating his “American idiom,” strongly influenced by ragtime, jazz, and spirituals. The first of the four pieces had the feel of a hoedown whose infectious fun was sprinkled with “wrong” notes. The slow movement gives the spotlight successively to each member of the quartet, who all shone both as soloists and ensemble members. The third piece has a jocular first violin part, but there is throughout an enjoyable alternation of the whimsical and the sober. The final piece is pompous and comical, with many laughs quite literally written into the music, and it would be hard to say who was enjoying themselves more, audience or quartet. According to the program notes, the Indiscretions are unrecorded; they would seem to be strong candidates for BCMS’s next recording.

The BCMS ensemble: violinists Ida Levin and Harumi Rhodes, violist Roger Tapping, pianist Mihae Lee, guest cellist Michael Reynolds, and violist Roger Tapping

The most famous of these exiled artists is the Austrian Erich Wolfgang Korngold, widely hailed as the foremost compositional child prodigy of his age. The Jewish Korngold had the good fortune to have just arrived in Hollywood when the annexation of Austria occurred. We heard first one of hisAbschiedslieder, Op. 14, (Songs of Farewell), Mond, so gehst du wieder auf (“Moon, thus you rise again”). The song on the surface is largely subdued, but there is a pronounced undercurrent of melancholy longing, even burning, skillfully brought out by the performers, Chris Pedro Trakas and Lee. The music only occasionally rose above mezzo piano, but the artists limned many nuances within the limited dynamic range.

The concert closed with Korngold’s Piano Quintet in E Major, Op. 15, sumptuously played by Levin, Rhodes, Tapping, Reynolds, and Lee. The work is replete with the composer’s characteristically rich harmonies and colors. Its emotional crux is the middle Adagio, whose theme is borrowed from the song previously heard. Here Korngold is painting on a larger canvas, and the theme is given considerably more development. We heard some beautifully delicate string playing from the quartet, combined with Lee’s velvety pianissimo piano sound, as well as an exquisite violin solo from Levin. A gradual build-up led to an extended climax before tapering off to a whispered ending that held the audience enthralled. The raging opening of the final movement in strings’ bare octaves soon unexpectedly transitioned to more playful music though the passion never disappeared altogether and reemerged fully in the brilliant coda. Bravo to BCMS and MIT for blowing the dust off some musical treasures that have been neglected for too long.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach, and choir member at Trinity Church, Copley Square and in the Back Bay Chorale.

Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in C Major, Op. 6, No. 10, opened the program with impeccable Baroque style, the Preludio notable for the seamless blending of concertino (the solo group) with the ripieno (the accompanying ensemble). Corelli’s counterpoint is not of the same order as Bach’s; one occasionally pitied the lower strings (including second violins) whose parts were perceptibly less interesting than that of the first violins. Still, all the players seemed to enjoy the music, giving the Allemanda a hearty schwung. The Corrente movement surprisingly started with a slow, more harmonically adventuresome introduction before launching into the vivace. The rhythm was also more varied here than before: regular hemiolas made their full effect, thanks to Boston Baroque’s immaculate ensemble. The following Allegro was rendered with vigor and ebullience; a number of phrases were reminiscent of the composer’s famous Christmas Concerto. The concluding Minuetto was brisk (marked vivace) without sacrificing its courtly elegance.

The Harp Concerto in B Flat Major, Op. 4, No. 6, of George Frideric Handel may be very much in the standard repertoire, but here Barbara Poeschl-Edrich played it on a (nowadays) quite unfamiliar instrument: the triple harp. Unlike the modern harp, this instrument has no pedals; instead, there are three sets of strings, the outer two corresponding to the piano’s white keys (diatonic), the inner to the black keys (accidentals). Given that the double-action mechanism found in today’s pedal harp wasn’t invented until the early nineteenth century, the triple harp is the instrument for which Handel wrote. The three ranks of strings are in such proximity that from even a fairly close distance the instrument appears virtually the same as a modern harp. This necessitates very precise fingerwork from the harpist, a difficulty that no doubt spurred the instrument’s later evolution. The triple harp is also more delicate in tone than its successor, but Poeschl-Edrich managed to produce a range of nuance even with its limited dynamic range. Pearlman and the orchestra were ever sensitive to this and created an intimacy more akin to chamber music than to a stereotypical concerto. The lamenting slow movement was especially moving, with extended, expressive harp solos.

In the next piece, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor (BWV 1043), the soloists were taken from within Boston Baroque: the principal first and second violins, Christina Day Martinson and Julie Leven, respectively. This delicious work gives us a stimulating dialogue between the two soloists as well as between the first and second violin sections which were, of course, positioned facing each other. The sense of a pair who can “finish each other’s sentences” was ever present in the animated first movement. The cozy warmth of the slow movement had the same exchange, though occasionally the “wrong” solo voice would emerge somewhat over the actual melody, perhaps from the subconscious instinct that the upper voice will always have the main tune. It ain’t necessarily so — particularly in Bach. Nonetheless, the beautiful playing evoked a fine vocal duet with sensitive accompaniment. The agitated final movement gave the soloists somewhat more opportunity for technical display as well as a delightful passage in which the soloists actually accompany the orchestra. As a demonstration of collegial music-making, this performance would be hard to top.

After an intermission which supplied Champagne to toast the new year, the second half consisted of two pieces of Antonio Vivaldi which decidedly don’t fit the widespread conception of the composer as almost entirely a string composer. Our radio host, Cathy Fuller, had an illuminating preliminary conversation with Martin Pearlman about Vivaldi’s position as music teacher at a Venetian girls’ orphanage, the Ospedale della Pietà, in which he developed formidable musical skills in a number of the orphans. These soloists, being young girls, had to perform behind screens, as it was thought improper for audiences to see them. The first piece, Concerto in A Minor for Sopranino Recorder (RV 445), was composed for one of these talented students. The soloist here was Aldo Abreu (who had previously lent a lovely recorder color to the orchestra accompanying Barbara Poeschl-Edrich in the Handel concerto). The sopranino recorder — like the piccolo — sounds an octave higher than its soprano counterpart. It is certainly a challenge to compose “serious” music for such a high-pitched instrument (one thinks immediately of the chuckle produced by Papageno’s pipes), but Vivaldi has left us a very fine work brought to life wonderfully by Abreu. On this diminutive instrument, I’m tempted to describe Abreu’s work as “prestidigitation,” but there was no legerdemain possible here: as with the triple harp, the fingerwork had to be, and was, extremely precise. There seemed to be no type of virtuosity neglected by Vivaldi, including a stupendous passage that seemed to demand circular breathing, though Abreu stated it was done all on one immense breath. The slow movement, by contrast, allowed the expressive gifts of the player to be heard, including vibrato and dynamic nuance. I was most grateful for a rare opportunity to hear this unusual work, particularly in such a brilliant performance.

The official program closed with Vivaldi’s motet for solo soprano, Nulla in mundo pax sincera (There is no genuine peace in the world) with an anonymous religious text. The singer was Mary Wilson, a lyric coloratura with a very attractive balance of clear tone and warmth. The first aria’s gist is that the world is full of torment and only in Jesus is there sweet contentment, but Vivaldi’s music focuses on the latter idea with its happy siciliano rhythm. The return of the A section brought some lovely ornamentation from Wilson, the most florid melisma coming appropriately on “Jesu.” The recitative that followed urges the listener to flee the deceitful smiler. Wilson produced an exceptional burst of coloratura on “fugiamus” (“let us flee”); we were also treated to some fine, creative continuo playing from harpsichordist Peter Sykes. The second aria warns of a venomous snake concealed in beautiful blossoms, but a man maddened by love (the carnal type, no doubt) will often lick the poison as if it were honey. Wilson sang this with an ironic smile and enjoyed the greater opportunity for technical display. The motet concludes with an Alleluia movement that rivals, if not surpasses, Mozart’s version for coloratura fireworks. Wilson tossed it off with panache and joie de vivre.

An encore was a foregone conclusion, but the choice was wonderfully bizarre: the — no doubt — premier performance on period instruments of “Glitter and Be Gay” from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide but an appropriate choice, nonetheless, for a WGBH broadcast, since this was once the theme music for WGBH-TV’s Evening at Pops. The song, of course, is the ultimate diva piece, with its manic-depressive mood swings and still more coloratura fireworks. Wilson had a ball with it, getting a big laugh by changing “Here I am in Paris, France” to “… Cambridge, Mass,” and again sailing through the spectacular vocal part without a hint of effort.

If this New Year’s Day broadcast becomes an annual event like the Boston Baroque concert already is, we may very soon have a celebration here in “our fair city” to rival Vienna’s apotheosis of the waltz.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church

We began with a look backwards: Alexander Siloti’s transcription of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude in B Minor. After Siloti (a Russian student of Liszt) transposed the piece, reversed the hands, and discovered a hidden melody within it, it was virtually a different piece from what Bach conceived, but Lewin made a strong case for this somewhat uneasy hybrid of nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, with emphasis on the former.

The first Liszt piece heard was the celebrated Vallée d’Obermann. Étienne Pivert de Sénancour’s novel, Obermann, a source of solace and enlightenment for Liszt, was also the inspiration for this arch-romantic effusion that Lewin’s program notes characterized without exaggeration as a “tone poem.” Lewin’s tonal range was immense: a particularly prominent example was a passage of infernal bass roars followed by a pause (the pianist often held one breathless with dramatic silences) and then a section of celestial lightness in the upper reaches of the keyboard. The many sighing figures ached with Sehnsucht, heightened by generous rubato. The numerous virtuoso sections were played truly in the grand manner without a hint of “playing it safe.”

The other revolutionary pianist/composer of the era with whom Liszt had a mutual admiration society was Frédéric Chopin, represented here by two études from his op. 10 (dedicated to Liszt). No. 6 in E flat Minor conveyed a deep melancholy, played legatissimo with liberal pedaling but never blurring the chromatic murmuring of the left hand. No. 5 in G-flat Major (“Black Keys”), lightly pedaled, fizzed and sparkled delightfully. A much less familiar concert étude followed: Manchega, op. 35, by the American Creole pianist/composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk who went to Paris as a teenager to study with Liszt. This showy piece, composed in Spain, had a virtually unrelenting high energy, and Lewin reveled in its near-constant syncopations and the tattoo of left-hand chords like drums. To round off the étude group, Liszt’s own Transcendental Étude No. 10 in F Minor was played with amazing mastery, meeting multiple fiendish technical challenges such as rapid martellato interlocked chords, octaves and double-octaves, arpeggios, etc. A couple gentler passages were more than faintly reminiscent of Chopin’s own F Minor Étude (op. 10, no. 9).

Sophie Menter was the most renowned female student of Liszt and was another virtuoso who also composed. Her Romance, op. 5, was pleasant enough, but one yearned for a piece that made a more lasting impression. This was rather standard-issue romanticism, the melody nearly always stepwise and the accompaniment mostly arpeggios. Lewin did what he could with it, and his exquisitely attenuated touch at the conclusion drew a purr of pleasure from the audience.

Many of Carl Tausig’s contemporaries considered him to be Liszt’s greatest protégé, though, sadly, he did not reach age 30. His The Ghost Ship: Symphonic Ballade, op. 1c, describing a Norse legend, is an impressive achievement for an opus 1. Practically every device in a virtuoso pianist’s arsenal is exploited to illustrate a fierce storm at sea and a Viking ship’s encounter with the titular Ghost Ship. Moreover, Tausig’s harmony is ingenious, especially the diabolical implications of tritones and an early use of the whole-tone scale. Once again, Lewin threw caution to the wind (pardon the expression) with electrifying results as he vividly depicted huge waves, crashing thunder, and lightning.

Following intermission we heard Liszt’s transcription of J. S. Bach’s great organ Fugue in G Minor, from BWV 542, with possibly the most tuneful of all the master’s fugue subjects. This was stated entirely staccato except for the paired 16th notes, giving it an odd spiky quality; but as more voices entered, this staccato thankfully was largely abandoned. The performance was notable for its polyphonic rigor and driving rhythm but was unfortunately marred by a major memory lapse, forcing the pianist to improvise, not too convincingly, though the propulsive rhythm was mostly maintained. Once Lewin was back on track the fugue proceeded smoothly, though the rapid bass octaves nearing the end (played by the feet on the organ) were regrettably heavy-handed and overly emphatic.

Liszt also made solo piano transcriptions of large numbers of songs by a wide array of composers. The artist gave us three examples: Spring by Chopin; The Nightingale by Alexander Alabieff; and On Wings of Song by Felix Mendelssohn. The conventional wisdom is that Chopin’s songs are not his best music, but this performance belied that. Liszt was sensitive to the simple charm of this wistful song and refrained from pianistic elaboration; Lewin likewise rendered it with the directness of a folk song, albeit with sensitive touch. Alabieff’s nightingale, however, gave Liszt the opportunity, eagerly seized, to write cadenzas of birdsong alternating with several Slavic themes. In one passage the two concepts were combined: a long trill in the middle of the texture with voices on either side. Lewin made it sound easy. One suspects On Wings of Song was one of Mendelssohn’s most popular creations in Liszt’s time, as in ours. Liszt’s elaboration on the original is of a sympathetic type, not a virtuoso vehicle. He places the melody initially in the tenor range, rather than the soprano, and for the final verse creates a charming duet. Lewin played the piece affectionately, with warm, cantabile tone.

The next original Liszt composition was a transcription of his own song, Petrarch Sonnet No. 123. Inspired by the 14th-century Italian poet’s immortal sonnets concerning romantic love, Liszt set three of them to music in 1838, and 20 years later transcribed them for solo piano. Lewin’s fine performance wholly justified this piece’s warhorse status. The joys and sufferings of love were given vivid expression; indeed, all contrasts were fully realized: vigor and delicacy, yin and yang, masculine and feminine, …

The program finished with an excerpt from one of Liszt’s opera “concert paraphrases”: the Waltz from Charles Gounod’s Faust. The first theme was given initially in grand fashion, evoking a great ballroom filled with dancing couples, then repeated much more intimately. A calmer central section allowed the pianist to catch his breath, though there were some brilliant, decorative fioriture like shooting stars. The final section featured possibly the most spectacular virtuoso fireworks on the program: very rapid repeated notes interspersed with octaves, glissandi, treacherous leaps in both hands, on and on. As before, Lewin plunged into the breach, nothing daunted, and gave us a hair-raising performance.

The well-deserved standing ovation led to one encore: appropriately enough, Claude Debussy’s Feux d’artifice (Fireworks), one of his most Lisztian works. Lewin again demonstrated a finely calibrated range of touch, so it was a pity that a short section of the piece was lost to a memory slip. Still, he generated plenty of atmosphere, explosive and exhilarating at one turn, seductively caressing at another.

In an age of antiseptic digital perfectionism, there are not many pianists who, playing live, “go for broke” in this hard-core virtuoso repertoire. It is wonderful to encounter one for whom intensity of expression and the irreplaceable excitement of true bravura are higher priorities than absolutely immaculate execution. Michael Lewin is one such. May he prosper.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church.